There is only one kosher Sherry Fino out there, that I know of and it the Tio Pepe Sherry Fino - find out what it is, what is flor, what is the solera process, and why I came to write a very long article about it!

David: We tasted a Tio Pepe fino sherry at our Spanish wine tasting a coupke of months ago (see my posting). I didn't know about the separate bottlings at that time but had just bought it from an online retailer. All agreed that this one was terrible. I have had fino sherries before and know what to expect.

Indeed my friend - to me it is a serious issue and one that I hope both Royal and Tio Pepe will find a way to rectify. To be honest this is not a hot seller, so it can sit of store shelves for years. Further the lot code system is so cryptic it is almost useless. Finally, if they did put the real date on the bottle, it may well not sell on the shelves, and that may mean no repeat customers.

Personally, the lack of transparency and the bad experiences - is what could kill the love for this wine - so I vote for clear dates and then let the market/consumer decide on whether or not they like it. Sales through Obfuscation - is a bad approach.

Most people here buy for cooking and they may never have smelled or noticed the difference based upon no previous knowledge in the wine at hand. The only other option is the Sherry Royal sweet one by Kedem and the books they get the Recipes out of say dry Sherry most of the time. Love to taste this and am going to check our codes. All the best

Tio Pepe is available in its non-kosher cuvee here. I had a bottle a few months ago from Wine&More in Tel Aviv. It think it was around 90NIS, 23$, which is a bit steep for this wine. There is a problem here with bottles sitting on the shelves too long, but my bottle was fine. Actually, Fino Sherry is a great wine for its food possibilities, and goes amazingly with olives, tomato sauce, parmesan and other strong hard salty cheeses, as well as anchovies, etc. It's a good thin-crust pizza match.

It would be great for the kosher foodie world to have a kosher Fino Sherry. Some folks turn their nose up at Tio Pepe, but I don't think it's bad, and its a big step up from the cheaper brands used mainly in cooking.

In the years before our marriage, my wife and I always had a half-gallon-jug of Gallo Livingston Dry sherry in the fridge. We'd come home, hit the fridge, pour a tall one and drink it with all nature of ready-to-eat tapas (from potato chips to pasta and anchovies. This stuff was cheap as water, yet great Fino-like beverage. I found it closely approximated Tio Pepe, at that time my favorite Fino, and nowhere near kosher. I never tasted a kosher Tio Pepe as good as that Livingston Dry, much less the nonkosher Tio Pepe of yore, and I think I must have been one of the first on the block to get some (a gift from the first lot that had arrived, from Jay Buchsbaum). I drank it, and I wanted to like it a lot, but it didn't cut the mustard. I had several bottles since, never doing justice to Fino. Perhaps it's just the impossible dream.